Skip to main content
Side

German Carrots

A buttery, sweetened carrot side dish with onions, cream, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

German Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Make the carrots

  1. Melt butter over medium heat in a saucepan.

  2. Add chopped onion, fry, stirring constantly until golden brown and tender.

  3. Add chopped carrots and sugar, cover, and simmer gently for about 30 minutes.

  4. Season with salt and pepper once carrots are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in cream and minced parsley.

  2. If desired, add cold cooked or canned peas and heat through before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide the main body and natural sweetness, softening into a tender vegetable as they simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the onion fries and the carrots begin to cook.
Onion
Browning in the butter builds savoury depth and aroma that flavour the whole dish.
Cream
Adds fat and a smooth, rich texture that gives the carrots a silky coating.

The step that matters

Simmer the carrots gently and covered. Gentle, covered simmering lets the carrots soften evenly without scorching on the bottom of the pan or drying out. Too much heat can break the pan's contents down unevenly and leave the carrots tough or burnt in places.

Swap the peas

The recipe marks peas as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, onion, sugar, pepper, cream, parsley):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, onion, sugar, pepper, cream, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Onion PuddingOnion Pudding9 recipesEggplant CakesEggplant Cakes34 recipesEscalloped Tomatoes (Scalloped Tomatoes)Escalloped Tomatoes (Scalloped Tomatoes)25 recipesParsnip CroquettesParsnip Croquettes12 recipes